Like most college grads, they finished school with a good idea of where they wanted their career paths to lead. Unlike most college grads, it was a dirt path.

So on a recent summer day, instead of working in an air-conditioned office 40 miles away in Philadelphia, the pair were tending to kale, collard greens and broccoli in Bucks County.

"It's been so dry, we're really hoping for rain soon," said Borneman, squinting in the hot afternoon sun.

"We went to college, we were on track to have some sort of professional careers, but it just didn't resonate," Murtha said. "The thing about farming is it engages you on all levels, which doesn't happen with a lot of jobs."

Murtha, 34, and Borneman, 32, are among a new crop of farmers sprouting up across the country who weren't raised on farms, have college degrees and, in some cases, have left other careers behind.

Murtha and Borneman have been farming together for eight years, the past two at the 70-acre Blooming Glen Farm in Perkasie. Parents of a 2-year-old daughter, they did stints in Oregon and New Jersey before returning to Pennsylvania, where they run farmers markets and operate a community-supported agriculture program, trading labor for produce during the growing season.

"Beyond the family aspect, it's enjoyable because it (is) so all-encompassing: the office work, the selling, the planting, the mechanical aspects," Borneman said. "Even when it's hot and I'm working hard, I can still hear the birds."

Kindred spirit Ben Wenk also considered a professional career but was drawn to the family agriculture business.

He didn't work on his family's century-old 350-acre fruit farm in Aspers, Pa., during high school, and considered a music-education degree.

"But when I stopped to think about it, I realized that music was more of a hobby, and farming was what I enjoyed the most and really wanted to do," he said. "I saw an opportunity to expand the business in a new direction."

Wenk, 23, became the seventh generation to work Three Springs Fruit Farm after graduating from Penn State last fall with a degree in agroecology, the science of sustainable farming. He added a half-acre plot for tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, squash and melons that he brings to Philadelphia farmers markets.

He created a MySpace page for the farm, where weather conditions are posted and customers post thank yous. He said the work requires business savvy and creative thinking to control costs and optimize sales, and Wenk is thinking about ways to expand.

"If I wanted to make a small fortune and retire at 55, I wouldn't have gone into agriculture. But I look at these beautiful rolling hills and think, this is my office," he said.

Such enthusiasm runs counter to the notion of farming as a dying vocation of dreary, thankless work.

"People always say, 'Oh, farming is a hard life,' " said Dawn Buzby of A.T. Buzby Farm, a 55-acre fruit and vegetable farm in Woodstown, N.J. "Sure there are hard parts -- the weather, the hours -- but doesn't every job have hard parts? Overall, it's a very satisfying, very rewarding career."

Buzby, who with her husband has been farming for 20 years, welcomes the fresh crop of people entering the farming field -- including her 25-year-old son, a recent college graduate with an engineering degree who returned to farm full time and also works the farmers markets.

"The new blood entering farming is a great trend that has really energized longtime farmers," she said. "There's a lot of enthusiasm out there."

Still, huge hurdles exist, from the cost of land to the threat of suburban sprawl.

U.S. Agriculture Department data paint a grim picture, showing that the average age of U.S. farmers has been increasing for decades and is currently 55 to 56, while the overall percentage of young farmers continues to fall.

People within the movement, however, say the numbers can be misleading.

"Are there young people who are going into farming? Yes, more and more," said Dennis Hall of the Center for Farm Transitions, a Pennsylvania Agriculture Department office providing technical assistance to new and established farmers.

He said the landscape started to change about 3 1/2 years ago.

Nearly one-fourth of people who currently contact the center for information don't have farming backgrounds, Hall said. They range from college students to people leaving established careers, he said.

"What I will say about a lot of the young folks is that they're more entrepreneurial, more agile and more intuitive," he said. "They'll look at where the consumer is going and they'll move appropriately."